This blog is an archive of reviews, interviews, feature stories and various odds and ends I've written for newspapers and magazines since 1998. A few other things I've written, along with mp3s, videos and whatnot will show up here as well.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Top 5

I was recently asked by Creative Loafing to put together a list of my picks for the top 5 records, CDs, 7"s and/or EP's released by Atlanta bands from January '06 to present (May '07).

This is what I came up with:

1. Deerhunter - Cryptograms / Fluorescent Grey 2xLP (Kranky). Packaged together as one cohesive artistic statement, Deerhunter’s second full-length, Cryptograms, and the follow-up Fluorescent Grey EP blurs the boundaries of dissonance, art and noise as pop music. Of course they're both available on CD, but vinyl just adds entirely new dimesnions to the quality of the sound on each record.

2. Gentleman Jesse & His Men - "I Don't Wanna Know (Where You Been Tonight)" 7" (Douchemaster Records). Gentleman Jesse’s debut is a power pop gem that re-envisions the skinny tie’70s with punch-in-the-gut heartbreak and a Rickenbacker chug that leaves you wanting more.

3. Juju B. Solomon - Self Titled CD (New Street). JuJu B. Solomon's self-titled debut embraces the voice of a stranger in a strange land, making sense of the world. His lyrics are vivid and his melodies drip with raw, unfettered emotions.

5. The Black Lips - Let it Bloom CD/LP (In the Red Records). What can I say, it's the Black Lips. If they weren't still hanging around town between tours, popping up when and where you least expect them, Atlanta would be a much less interesting place. With Let It Bloom, the group transcend the trashy stage antics of its early years to demonstrate an evolving sense of skill, pushing fuzzed-out garage rock into exciting new places.